Data Leakage Prevention (DLP), also known as Data Loss Prevention, Information Leak Prevention and Detection (ILPD), Content Monitoring and Filtering (CMF), Information Protection and Control (IPC) refers to systems that identify, monitor and protect data in use (e.g. end-user actions), data in motion (e.g. network communications) and data at rest (e.g. stored data).
Such systems examine information either stored or transmitted through some medium and try to filter out information that is deemed to be sensitive/private or otherwise restricted.
Many large firms must comply with government and/or commercial regulations requiring control over information and demanding appropriate measures be taken to secure data.
DLP systems are usually subjected to explicit policies that define what is considered as sensitive information. The “sensitive information” may be determined by considering one or more sensitive data characteristics.
For example, a DLP system may look for a title keyword from a list of title keywords which are indicative of sensitive information. In the phrase “Social Security Number: 123456789”, the label text preceding the number is a defined keyword indicative of sensitive information (which, in this case, is the number itself).
In another example a DLP system may look for a content format of a list of formats which are indicative of sensitive information. The format of the following alphanumeric string “1234-5678-9123-4567” is similar to the format of credit card numbers and is thus indicative of potentially sensitive information.
The actual definition of sensitive information is commonly user-defined and may depend on organization rules that pertain to the organization using the DLP system and/or on the specific state rules and laws.